It’s a dark and stormy night, 28,000 feet over the Midwest. Just after 10:30 PM, I’m standing aft of the cockpit of a NASA DC-8, while lightning flashes outside the cabin windows. »7/24/15 6:40pm 7/24/15 6:40pm

Carbon emissions aren’t just changing the climate — they’re making it harder to solve crimes. As our atmosphere fills with fossil carbon, scientists will have a tougher time using radiocarbon dating, a standard forensic technique, to analyze human remains and wildlife tissues. »7/21/15 2:40pm 7/21/15 2:40pm

The collapse of the Soviet Union didn’t just affect humans—forests across Europe and Asia were impacted, too. Some 533 million acres of forest in Eastern Europe have regrown since 1985, largely due to the disintegration of timber industries and abandonment of agricultural lands in countries such as Hungary, Croatia,… »7/15/15 7:30pm 7/15/15 7:30pm

The Pacific Northwest is due for a continent-rending earthquake. Experts believe the odds of a Big One happening in the next half century are about one in three, the odds of a Very Big One roughly one in ten, and that, in either case, we are disastrously unprepared. »7/13/15 6:55pm 7/13/15 6:55pm

There’s been much debate these past few years over the cause of the so-called global warming “hiatus”—a pause in the overall uptick up of Earth’s temperature due to cooling at the surface of the Pacific Ocean since the early 2000s. Did climate warming stop? Nope, we just weren’t looking deep enough. »7/09/15 11:35pm 7/09/15 11:35pm

None of us would be alive today without plants, and if humans want to survive beyond Earth long-term, we’ll need to bring our leafy greens with us. Eventually, astronauts are going to have to become space farmers. »6/18/15 10:00am 6/18/15 10:00am

The image you’re looking at is a glimpse into our future. Welcome to July 2099, according to 21 different climate models. CO2 concentrations have topped 900 parts per million, comprising nearly 0.1 percent of our atmosphere. (In early 2015, we hit 400). »6/14/15 9:00am 6/14/15 9:00am

India is known for becoming a sweltering furnace in May, but last month was exceptionally brutal, with temperatures hovering 10 degrees Fahrenheit above normal for nearly two weeks. By June 4th, the heat wave had claimed over 2,500 lives, making it the fifth deadliest in recorded history. »6/06/15 10:00am 6/06/15 10:00am

On May 10th, tropical storm Ana—the first named storm of this year’s North Atlantic hurricane season—made landfall along the Carolina coast. NASA scientists took the opportunity to observe the storm’s wind dynamics with one of their newest toys and produced this spectacular wind map while they were at it. »5/17/15 7:00pm 5/17/15 7:00pm

Roughly 3.3 billion years ago, Earth’s early life forms were plunged into an unimaginable hell, when a series of massive asteroids smashed into the young planet, vaporizing the oceans and scorching the skies. »5/16/15 2:00pm 5/16/15 2:00pm

Sixty-five million years ago, a meteorite careened into Earth, leaving a huge crater on the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula. The impact is likely responsible for killing off the most of the dinosaurs—along with 75 percent of all species on Earth. Scientists are now planning an expedition to drill into the…»4/14/15 6:40pm 4/14/15 6:40pm

Under Greenland's frozen surface is a vast network of channels, crevasses, and basins—its "glacial plumbing system." A few years ago, the water suddenly disappeared from a subglacial lake, which then collapsed into a funny silhouette that NASA likens to a "mitten," but I think looks more like a waving Yeti. »3/03/15 5:45pm 3/03/15 5:45pm

Here you can see a composite satellite photo of two cyclones hitting northern Australia within six hours of each other this week. In the upper left is Cyclone Lam, and in the lower right is Cyclone Marcia. It's beautiful but also terrifying. »2/20/15 7:45pm 2/20/15 7:45pm